How to Animate Shape Borders in Adobe After Effects CC

Animating borders is a great way to add a little flare to a shape. In After Effects, creating a professional looking animation is quite simple. It just takes a little key-framing, and some value adjustments to pull off. Today we are going over how to Animate Shape Borders in Adobe After Effects CC.

How to Animate Shape Borders in Adobe After Effects CC

Use the pen tool or a shape tool to create a shape. Make sure it’s a shape layer and not a mask of another layer.

Go to the shape layer in the timeline, go to “Contents” and drop down the arrow. Go over to the right to find the “Add: >” button.

Click on this bottom and find trim paths, click on this.

Drop down the “Shape 1” property. Here you should now find the “Trim Paths 1” property. Drop this one down as well.

The “Start” control will control where the path starts, and end control where it ends.

You can drag the percentages around to control these two points.

You can use the offset to control where the start and end points are. So if you want it to start on the left side of the shape, or the right side, you can control this.

Click the stopwatches on the Start and End properties.

A simple animation is moving the start from 0 to 100%, while having the end at 0%. This will create a simple animation outlining the shape.

You can highlight all of the keyframes and click F9 on your keyboard to add easy ease. You can also right click on each keyframe to add this to them.

You can also go in to the graph editor (the small graph button at the top of the timeline) you can also move around the motion of the keyframes to control the timing of the animations.

There you have it. The basic technique is quite simple. All you have to do is work around with the keyframes and their motion to fine tune it to fit your piece. If you have any questions or comments, let me know here or on the video!